Characters And Beliefs In The Crucible, By Arthur Miller

The Salem witch trials of 1692 to 1693 were dark times in which many were convicted of witchcraft based solely on scanty and unprovable evidence. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a fictional play written about these events. In it Abigail Williams and other townsfolk use the trials as a way to further their own means and carry out personal vendettas against others, while a few, such as John Proctor, try to expose the trials and the accusers for what they really are: a fraud. One of the key characters of the play is Reverend Hale of Beverly, who at the beginning of the play is determined to convict the witches of Salem, but his opinion gradually changes and by the end of the play, he denounces the court, showing that Reverend Hale experienced a great moral shift during the course of the play. In The Crucible, Miller uses the dynamic Reverend Hale to show that morality is rarely black and white, with often morality leads to others being falsely demonized, but often lies somewhere in the gray area between the two. At the beginning of the play, Hale believed that morality was black and white, a grave error. Upon his arrival, Hale states that the marks of the Devil are “... definite as stone” (Miller, 40). This shows that he believes in a very black and white morality; you are either with the Devil, and show clear …show more content…
At the beginning of the play, Hale’s black and white view of morality helps to bring about the dark times of the Salem witch trials by making it easy to convict the innocent. As the play progresses though, Hale begins to see his error, and by the end, Hale has adopted a new view of morality, one that involves a grey area. With this new view of morality, Hale returns to Salem in an attempt to make up for his previous errors by asking those who refused to admit to witchcraft to do so in an attempt to save their